Weblog of The Gate to Greece. Mainly about Athens and Piraeus because I live here and especially about food because I love it.

29 May, 2012

O Vatrahos @ Keramikos-Gkazi

Last Tuesday, we visited a taverna-mezedopoleio "O Vatrahos (Flog)" in Gazi-Keramikos area.

It is somehow distant from the other restaurants/bars of the area and I wondered who would come all the way to here (actually it is not so far from the Keramikos Metro station, but being on the other side of Iera Odos, it is a bit daunting).

It is surprisingly large space and when we entered at 20:30 there was absolutely no customer inside. While we were there, another couple and one man joined, but for such a large space, it was rather depressing.

The menu does not look much different from usual ones of classic tavernas and mezedopoleia, although the dishes were with twist, as we were going to experience.

The first is grilled bread with oil, salt and oregano. We ordered also a half-kilo of wine (I don't know why the Greeks use 'kilo' instead of 'litre' when they order wine.

We ordered red wine, but it was like dark rose imigryko (half-sweet), which was all right.

Greek salad came in a pita bowl and dressed with mustard dressing, with some strips of fungus. Except that the amount of dressing was too generous, it was nice and different.

Fava came with caramelized onion and rocket sauce. It would have looked beautiful, but it was SOOOO dark, it was difficult to see what I was eating.

I hate dark restaurants, but Fava was very good and pleasantly sweet.

Dolmadakia were totally indifferent, re-heated with microwave.

Don't take me wrong. I am not particularly against the use of microwave, but still the execution was mediocre.

Grilled pork fillet (psaronefri) was much better.

I usually do not like grilled pork fillets, as they turn too dry, but this one was well grilled and saved from being too dry.

No freebees at the end and the final bill came to 36.50 Euro, which was just OK.

We might return it we happened to be in the area, but I would not say it is a destination restaurant.